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How To Lower Your Ocean Freight Charges?

Nowadays business has transformed from local to global supply chain levels. A global supply company can benefit a lot from cost optimisation especially when it relates to ocean freight charges. Let us take a look at a few measures which can assist further in reducing the ocean freight charges:

1. Consolidate: Almost every carrier provides hefty discounts on freight charges if the involved shipment is voluminous. Sending out fewer and more infrequent shipments consolidated together will go a long way in saving costs. One can opt to shift from less container load or LCL shipments to full container loads or FCL shipments to make use of economies of scale.

2. Trans-Loading: A company can save up to 3% to 11% on an average by trans-loading in comparison to intact shipping charges. Making use of a trans-loading facility for getting the goods repacked and loaded on transport for delivery can reduce the ocean freight charges.

3. Benchmarking: It is utmost integral to keep a tab on the prevalent market rates offered by different vendors. By benchmarking the ocean freight charges available in the market, one can ensure cost efficiency.

4. Invoice Audit: It is imperative to audit all the invoices and quotations received from the shipper and tally them against your records. This helps eliminate cost inaccuracies.

5. Planning and Negotiation: Effective planning of business processes with a clear understanding of frequency and volume of shipments demanded goes a long way in increasing savings. Many carriers prefer and offer the best rates to customers who are able to forecast their needs.

6. Triangulation: To get the best deals on ocean freight charges, one should prefer triangulating their containers. Triangulation involves making efficient use of a round trip by using the same container for exporting and importing in the same trip.